MINISTRY OF REINFORCEMENTS |
| DIRECTOR William Lips |
ABOUT
The Danes, though dispersed and apparently subdued, were still numerous in those parts of the island they had so long possessed; and waited but a reinforcement from the shores of the Baltic*, to enable them to reappear in the field as formidable as ever. With so strong a sense of the value of the possession they had lost, they were of course not slow in devising means for A. D. its speedy recovery; and accordingly, in the year 8491, 49a fleet from the north, consisting of 140 sail, landed a fresh supply of force upon the coast of Ireland J : and the war, which had slumbered but from want of fuel, was now with all its former vigour rekindled.
While the violence, too, of the contending parties continued, in its renewed shape, as fierce and barbarous as ever, there was now introduced in their relations to each other a material and demoralising change, — a readiness to merge their mutual hostility in the joint pursuit of plunder or revenge ; and to fight side by side under the same banner, regardless of aught but the selfish interests of the moment; — a change, which, it is evident, to the moral character of both parties could not be otherwise than deeply and lastingly injurious. Upon the public mind of Ireland, in particular, the effects of such warfare must have been to the deepest degree degrading. The dissensions of a people among themselves, however fatal to the national strength, may not be inconsistent with a generous zeal for the national glory and welfare ; but when, as in this instance, they invite the foreigner to cast his sword into the scale, they not only blindly invite slavery, but also richly deserve it.